From what I've seen elsewhere, "Requests" boards work the better the more specific the subforums are (without going overboard, of course), because regular request fillers tend to have specific interests. For example, someone who uploads mainly audio books and is willing to take requests may not be willing to wade through all the music requests which make up the bulk of an "Audio Requests" board to *find* those audio book requests.

Thus, I'd like to suggest a significant increase in the number of subforums, more along the lines of the main site's subcategories than its umbrella categories, as is the case now. Something very roughly like this:

Music

Audio books

Other audio

Movies

TV shows

Music videos

Other video

Windows applications

Mac applications

Other applications

Windows games

Mac games

Other games

Porn

Comics

E-books

Pictures

Other (or, the main forum itself could serve as the catch-all subforum, too)

Adding more sections wouldn't be necessary if people would put a summary of their request in the title. There aren't all that many requests posted in a day, so anyone looking to help could quickly scan all the titles to see what is new and of interest.

If we see a distinct need for a new sub forum, one could certainly be created. But at the moment, the volume of requests we get doesn't really justify adding additional sub forums.

(Dec 17, 2013, 19:50 pm)kjf Wrote: anyone looking to help could quickly scan all the titles to see what is new and of interest

Could, certainly. But the question is, will they. And the answer is that at least some won't, whereas they might do if they didn't have to make the additional effort of parsing and then ignoring those request which are outside their particular area of interest.

I don't mean to sound argumentative, but isn't such a restructuring a small price to pay if it increases the likelihood that requests will be filled even slightly?

Now, if you believe such a restructuring wouldn't actually have that positive effect, then obviously you shouldn't listen to me.

(Dec 18, 2013, 04:15 am)kjf Wrote: Like I said, if the volume of requests picks up, then it may make sense to create additional categories for requests.

Well, the flipside of that particular coin is that the volume of requests increases or decreases depending on how likely or unlikely they are to be filled, which I'm contending depends partly on how well organized the forum is. Not quite a catch-22, but verging on one.

It's nothing like a Catch-22. It's a simple straightforward choice between two alternatives based on expected results. The same way you choose Presidents or whether to use condoms.

You've claimed to have--but failed to present--any evidence to support your vague claim that "significantly more but not too many more" forums will result in more requests being filled.

Where are these "elsewhere" boards of which you speak? How many forums do they have? How many members do they have? What is their completion percentage? What, for that matter, is our completion percentage? How many forums is "significantly more but not too many more" exactly? How is that number derived?

The "Catch-22" aspect I was referring to is that the argument "feature X gets so little use, it's not worthwhile to improve it" fails to take its own converse into account, namely that it can often be argued that "improving feature X would result in its getting more use". I'm on solid ground that far, I believe, the shaky part is the underlying assertion that the suggested change would indeed be an improvement.

I don't have any real stake in this matter, so I'm going to have to decline your challenge to support that assertion with evidence. Not that I'd have any idea how to go about that, beyond the level of the anecdotal, mind you. My purpose here was to suggest an improvement based on an impression I hold. If that impression is not shared by others, it is likely mistaken, end of story.

The only thing that made me continue the conversation was kjf's approach to the matter, which is a bit too conservative for my taste. But I think I've contributed all I've got in this regard at this point. Thanks for sharing your views, everyone!

(Dec 16, 2013, 00:20 am)gesserit Wrote: ...regular request fillers tend to have specific interests. For example, someone who uploads mainly audio books and is willing to take requests may not be willing to wade through all the music requests which make up the bulk of an "Audio Requests" board...

Your assertion is incorrect which I'm guessing is down to your lack of knowledge about the suprbayrequest team. I personally check every single request that comes through the suprbayrequest irc chan, and while it is 2-fold in that I do so to check for spam links, the main reason is to help search. It doesn't matter what forum the request goes in, or how many sub-forums there are (the less the better imho), someone will help search for it.

When a request goes unfulfilled, it is either because no torrent could be found, or no one has uploaded it yet, and not because no one has searched for it. No request is ignored and the forum members who help fulfill them are actually quite a dedicated bunch of people who spends hours each day helping out.

The only way I can see the request section improving is if more of our regular members helped their fellow pirates out by helping to search for or upload stuff, but certainly not by having all those extra forums to wade through.